Archive for the ‘Consumer News’ Category

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media were abuzz with “facts” put out by the New York Times, The Washington Post, WRAL-TV, and other outlets. They claim that the old North State is losing its brand identity. Why?

Our state is no longer “progressive”. In the last election, North Carolina citizens voted most liberals out of office.

We are not as “progressive” as we once were, thanks to over a century of Democratic rule. Six month ago, for the first time ever, Republicans took control of every branch of government in North Carolina. Citizens were tired of it and wanted to try something else. Apparently, our liberal friends do not realize this.

To the liberal media, this was a true horror. Bruce Mildwurf could barely contain his glee, reporting this evening on WRAL’s 6:00 p.m. news, that even Fox News was reporting on the liberal “Moral Monday” protests. Apparently he doesn’t realize that Fox has a policy of “we report, you decide”.

“Would the losing team in the Super Bowl go protest outside the winning team’s locker room, because they lost the game,” state GOP Chairman Claude Pope told the national media.

State Sen.Thom Goolsby explained that Democrats over spent and left North Carolina in a financial mess. ”Our job has been to come in here and clean up.”

Meanwhile, a liberal activist retorted that “this is only the beginning and legislators should prepare for more protests…” until the next election.

Statewide liberal groups, like Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the NAACP have organized weekly protests but so have conservative groups.

I’ve just learned that a compromise has been reached, and SB-353 has been amended to include the key pro-life provisions from H695, but with modifications to address the Governor’s / DHHS objections. It has been approved in committee, and next goes to the House floor, presumably tomorrow. From there, it will go back to the Senate for “concurrence.”

Please call NC House members and ask them to support SB-353, as amended, which is now entitled “Health and Safety Law Changes.”

The bill also directs the N.C. Department of Insurance to return unspent taxpayer funds awarded by the Federal Department of Health and Human Services earlier this month to create a state-federal partnership exchange.

“Obamacare was forced on us against our will by the federal government, and they should shoulder the burden of implementing it,” said Sen. Apodaca. “Any claim that North Carolina would ‘control’ this program is nothing more than an illusion.”

Senate Bill 4 also rules out expansion of the North Carolina Medicaid program. In its 2012 decision on Obamacare, the U.S. Supreme Court exempted states from the federal mandate to expand Medicaid eligibility. Based on the court’s ruling, North Carolina has the authority to opt out of expansion.

Costs for North Carolina’s existing Medicaid program have increased significantly in recent years. In 2012, the General Assembly was forced to fill a surprise Medicaid shortfall that totaled more than $500 million. Recent figures from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services indicate that an expansion of the program would add hundreds of millions of dollars in additional state costs to North Carolina’s Medicaid budget through 2019.

“Senate Republicans are committed to ensuring every North Carolinian receives the highest quality health care and outcomes,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger (R-Rockingham). “Saddling our citizens with the enormous costs of a new federal bureaucracy and entitlements is simply not the way to achieve this goal.”

Background:

Under Obamacare, each state must have in place a health exchange where individuals and small businesses, which are now mandated to have insurance, can purchase health care coverage. There are three options: a state-run exchange, a state-federal partnership exchange and a federally-run exchange. Senate leaders have spent months evaluating the implications of each type of exchange.

In November 2012, former Gov. Beverly Perdue prematurely declared her intent to establish a state-federal partnership exchange – three months before the deadline for the state to make this declaration – while at the same time applying for $73.9 million dollars in federal grant funding to set up the new government program.

With the beginning of the new year, more of the provisions of Democrats’ massive, unpopular health care law are going into effect and news reports are, again, popping up illustrating all the negative impacts on health care this ill-conceived law will have.

The New York Times reported last week, “Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers. Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own. In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013.”

Politico adds today, “If you work for a small business, your next health insurance premium may give you sticker shock. Many of the small-business and individual insurance policies are working the health reform law’s 2014 fees into their 2013 bills, contributing to double-digit premium increases for some people.All those new consumer benefits packed into the health reform law — birth control without a co-pay, free preventive care and limits on when insurers can turn down a customer — had to be paid for somehow.”

“Insurers say they have no choice but to increase premiums to cover those costs,” Politico writes. “But it’s hitting pocketbooks sooner than some people expected, and that’s causing controversy. Everyone, even many of the law’s supporters, admit premiums are going to go up under the health law — although many people will get subsidies to help pay for coverage. Many of the costs — and the priciest benefits — were pushed beyond the 2012 election to 2014. But if the public revolts when they see 10 percent,15 percent or 20 percent rate hikes, already shaky support for the health law could suffer. . . . Now, insurers are being proactive, arguing the health law is driving the increase in prices. ‘There’s a massive new health insurance tax that starts in 2014,’ said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for industry group America’s Health Insurance Plans. ‘For policies that are sold in 2013 and extend into next year, there’s going to be taxes imposed. … As a result, like all taxes, they will be reflected in premiums charged.’”

Meanwhile, the health care law is already resulting in cutbacks at health providers and is likely to hurt job creation in the years to come. In a story titled, “Delaware Hospice lays off 52 workers amid federal changes,” the Delaware News Journalwrites, “Delaware Hospice’s Chief Executive Officer Susan Lloyd said Wednesday the nonprofit healthcare provider has laid off 52 workers in a restructuring necessitated by shrinking federal reimbursements. The job cuts, which carve significantly into the organizations 400-member staff, impact jobs in all departments in Delaware, and in Delaware and Chester counties in Pennsylvania, Lloyd said. . . . . Lloyd said the cuts were unavoidable and represent a national trend of providers adapting to changes in health care reimbursement. . . . ‘The decision was not made lightly and it is a direct result of a consequential decline in census and the need to position the organization to meet additional changes and challenges that the hospice industry anticipates with health care reform.’”

And USA Today reported recently, “Many businesses plan to bring on more part-time workers next year, trim the hours of full-time employees or curtail hiring because of the new health care law, human resource firms say. Their actions could further dampen job growth, which already is threatened by possible federal budget cutbacks resulting from the tax increases and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff. ‘It will have a negative impact on job creation’ in 2013, says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. Under the Affordable Care Act, businesses that employ at least 50 full-time workers — or the equivalent, including part-time workers — must offer health insurance to staffers who work at least 30 hours a week. Employers that don’t provide coverage must pay a $2,000-per-worker penalty, excluding the first 30 employees.”

Republicans warned about all these consequences as Obamacare was being debated, but Democrats and President Obama ignored them and the disapproval of the American people. In December 2009, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “It’s abundantly clear that the more Americans learn about this bill, the more they oppose it. And now we know the same goes for businesses. Businesses that can’t insure workers face stiff fines, resulting in lost wages and jobs, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office. What’s more, studies suggest that this so-called employer mandate would have a disproportionate impact on low-income, entry-level workers. At a time of [high] unemployment, we should be doing everything we can to create jobs. This bill would only lead to more lost jobs.”

And the night Democrats jammed the bill through the Senate, Leader McConnell said “[H]ere’s the reality: the Democrat bill we’re voting on tonight raises health care costs. That’s not me talking — that’s the administration’s own budget scorekeeper. It raises premiums — that’s the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office talking. It raises taxes on tens of millions of middle class Americans. . . . It forces people off the plans they have — including millions of seniors.”

This terrible legislation still needs to be repealed and replaced, but until then it will unfortunately continue to raise premiums, raise health care costs, hurt care, and hurt jobs.

Thursday, KCC received a note from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation regarding the off-the-wall Fiscal Deficit “fix” just passed by Congress. Perhaps many of you received it, too. We all need to jump in together and save America from the bad economic policy. Read on:

There they go again.

Recently Congress passed a bill to avert the so-called fiscal cliff. But instead of focusing on the real driver of our fiscal imbalance, runaway government spending, Congress passed a bill that’s all taxes and no serious spending reductions. The bill was filled with terrible economic policy from top to bottom. The one bright spot is that we’re finally starting to establish some permanency in the tax code, an important element of economic stability.

Taxes: the bill fails to protect the economy from all the tax hikes. Everything from capital investment, to labor, to consumption, and even death will be more heavily taxed in 2013. None of that will spur economic growth.

Spending: remember when both President Obama and Speaker Boehner talked about a “balanced approach?” This bill is a classic Washington tax-and-spend bill with no spending cuts to be found. What’s worse, it actually includes billions in new spending.

Even while raising taxes on hardworking Americans, Congress recognized that high taxes hurt economic growth and so they handed out myriad special carve outs so their friends wouldn’t feel the bite. Wind energy, motorsports entertainment complexes and even the hard-up Hollywood tycoons got a special tax break in the bill.

In addition to the damage these policies will do to the economy, raising taxes in a deficit fight just puts a Band-Aid on the problem. Runaway government spending is still the main problem with the federal budget and with the nation’s economy.

We are now live blogging the closing session of the American for Prosperity Foundation’sDefending the Dream Conference. It’s their largest event of the year, attended by conservatives nationwide. Please excuse spelling errors.

Vice President of AFPF, Alan Cobb is first up to speak. Keep checking for updates. Your blogger sat with his teenage children last night at the Ronald Reagan dinner and they mentioned how much time and financial resources he donates to this cause. He is introducing Brent Bozell, KCC’s hero, founder of the Media Reasearch Center.

Brent Bozell

His father was also a hero of this blogger, helping to start the original conservative movement right before Barry Goldwater ran for the presidency. The number ! story in this election cycle is unemployment and the economy. Yet ABC, CBS, and NBC didn’t report this terrible news, until they absolutely had to. ABC still has not reported it.

Gas prices went up and only 27 stories came out. Yet during the Bush years, four times as many gas prices stories came out.

The media also has plenty of time plenty of time for Mitt Romney and his “gaffs”. Four years ago when Obama went overseas, the Big Three networks treated him like a GOD. Don’t worry because new media will take them over, and we have!!!

Tim Phillips, president of AFP, is introducing the state directors. In this blogger’s opinion, he should give Dallas Woodhouse and the North Carolina team special recognition. We were the very first state, originally organized as Citizens for a Sound Economy.

Mark Levin is now speaking and says its Barack Obama’s birthday, to much laughter.

He says we are standing on great shoulders. He reminded us of the one generation freedom is from extinction as Ronald Reagan said. Abraham Lincoln said that our worst enemy comes from within.

He says things like social justice, economic equality, and such things have come into our culture. It’s hard to believe that the President of the United States is one of the malcontents that are being created. It’s seeping into our culture by indoctrination. We now live in a post constitutional world, thanks to these malcontents.

He mentioned Woodrow Wilson. He condemned Federalism and the notion of state sovereignty. He said liberty was a privildge. The will determine the scope of the office. He called this “constitutional adaptation.” I call it bull crap, said Levin.

Is there anything the Federal Government cannot regulate if it chooses to? Levin mentioned the recent the Supreme Court ruling that said the government can regulate our physical and mental health. It’s a post-constitutional goverment in an increasingly authoritarian society.

He mentioned that it’s Obama’s birthday today, but so what, it’s also Saturday.

No President has had more contempt for the country he leads and for the people he represents. Mr. President, if you don’t understand the way American works, how can you fundamentally transform it?

Levin asks “since when does the money you earn belong to the government?”

Obama said if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.

Obama says it’s time for a revolution, but Levin says its time to reinstate the American Revolution!

The Obama administration has driven up our debt in four years more than $41 trillion, more than all other presidents combined. The poor have gotten poorer. The welfare state is growing and collapsing at the same time.

“What the hell are our kids gonna do”, asks Levin.

The challenge today is much more complicated than previous wars because the challenge is from within.

No society is guaranteed perpetual existence. That’s why we must work for this election, next election, and in the elections beyond. We have no choice. This is our country and we want it back!

Standing roudy ovation.

This ends our live blogging session. We’ll have more on this wonderful Defending the Dream Conference soon.

According an action alert sent to members, legislative chairman Joyce Krawiec wrote:

Our Republican led House and Senate recently passed S820 to allow for Hydraulic Fracturing in NC. This technology would enable NC to harvest natural gas which would be a huge job creator for our state. The Governor had said she would be in favor of this legislation but now, it is expected that she will veto this legislation. We need to contact certain Legislators that we believe may be leaning to vote for overriding the Governor’s veto.

Call the Legislators below and urge them to vote to over ride Gov. Perdue’s veto.

Krawiec urged readers to telephone and e-mail the following Representatives. She added that callers should be extremely polite and keep your message simple:

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the nation’s largest advocate for economic freedom, announced today the roll-out of a significant new effort in response to the Supreme Court ruling on President Obama’s health care law.

AFP President Tim Phillips said, “While we are deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court ruling, this is far from over. AFP will continue to work to defeat President (Barack) Obama’s unaffordable, irresponsible, unaccountable law that burdens the American people with a crushing new tax.”

“Not A Tax” is just one part of a multi-tiered effort that includes online activism and significant grassroots action in over a dozen states. The total budget for this effort is $9 million.

According to North Carolina’s statewide director, Dallas Woodhouse, the North Carolina portion of the ad buy is $1 million. ”This is a vital state in the upcoming national election” he told a group the Craven County taxpayers, meeting in New Bern on Thursday evening.

Ironically, on the final run day of “The Private Sector is Fine“, your blogger noticed that the Obama team had finally gotten on the air to dispute it.

Join the North Carolina Americans for Prosperity as they hit the road headed for Greenville, New Bern, and Wilmington for their “Not Doing Fine” events. (See video, below.) You may have seen President Obama declare that the private sector is “doing fine” while thousands are out of work and companies are struggling with executive branch demands, such as Obamacare.

It’s costing companies so much that they cannot afford to hire more workers that the cycle of recession continues. Yet, our clueless President continues to thumb his (very large) nose at the problem.

What can you do? If you live in Eastern North Carolina, come on out to the following events and let your voice be heard. Local TV and news papers, plus KCC and other bloggers will be on hand to record what YOU think. Don’t miss out!

Wednesday, June 27 ”It’s Not Doing Fine” Events

AFP staffers will collect “It’s Not Doing Fine” petitions and talk with citizens about how they can fight Obama’s disastrous policies. Stop by for free food, beverages and conversation!

Greenville:7:00-9:00 am Rep Express Catering, 805 Red Banks Road, 27858Talk of the Town with Henry Hinton will broadcast live on location from Rep Express.

Red Hat is sucking money out of Wake County taxpayers, with approval of Republican leaders on the Wake County Commission

Once again, the Republican members of theWake County Commission have failed the taxpayers of North Carolina’s capital county. Red Hat, one of the Triangle region’s most successful companies, came hat-in-hand, to the public trough, asking for $650,000 and the GOP lead group, came through. This is a group that the Wake County Republican party worked tirelessly to elect and we feel certain that they won’t be happy.

Republican CommissionersPaul Coble(running for Congress), Tony Gurley (running as “the conservative candidate” for Lt. Governor), Phil Matthews, and Joe Bryan all voted FOR this measure. Liberals Betty Lou Ward and James West also joined in.

Red Hat wants to leave its longtime home on North Carolina State University’s Centennial campus, and move to downtown Raleigh into the recently vacated Progress Energy building. Progress Energy was recently acquired/merged with Duke Power and those employees have either lost their jobs or have been relocated.

In the name of “jobs”, Red Hat deemed that the “needed” this money to bring more jobs, not only to Wake County, but to lawmakers’ precious downtown, that has already received more than its fair share of public financing.

KCC understands that Red Hat, a successful manufacturer of the Linux computer operating system, would have been fine without the money. We like to call this effort, the Red Hat Poverty Fund.

politicians have become afraid to oppose the practice of luring companies with the promise of tax breaks.

It’s time to get companies off the public dole in the ole’ North State. However, it won’t be happening anytime soon. Both the State of North Carolina and the City of Raleigh are expected to vote to chip in to the Red Hat poverty fund. After all, no self-respecting politician wants to appear to oppose jobs, even in the face of principle!

Editor’s Note: According to the News and Observer, Commissioner Paul Coble said it’s written into the policy of the county commission. With a Republican Leadership, this policy MUST be changed!